But as others have noted, the Tea Party isn't really an organized party, it's more of a movement. There aren't even many clearly defined platform planks apart from lowering taxes and getting rid of Obama (the only thing other than just electing a candidate that makes a party nonviable long term is DE-electing a candidate. ) Even when such a structure exists it's very hard to establish a party with any hope of actually achieving anything nationally (just ask moondog) and entering other party primaries isn't exactly a convincing first step. On the other hand, they can't really enter Tea Party primaries, because there's no national or even state level party structure to hold them. It's not like Paul was chosen by KY Tea Party members from a vast field of Tea Party candidates: He was the ONLY Tea Party Senate candidate, and his supporters duly turned out to nominate him in the Republican primary. In fact, much of the Tea Party already has an ACTUAL party that I believe represents them fairly well: The Libertarian Party, whose best known Presidential nominee is (surprise, surprise) Ron Paul (R-TX. )

From a strategic perspective, I think rt is right: All the Tea Party national candidates who are doing well are doing so in Republican primaries, so with a few exceptions (and KY may well be one) it's not like the Republican rank and file is going to be so alarmed that they vote Democratic just because a Tea Party member won their partys primary; in most cases the Tea Party is still a lot closer to what the Republican rank and file want than the Democrats are.